CeCe McDonald Released From Prison

CeCe McDonald (pictured right) was released from a men’s Minnesota prison this morning after serving 19 months of her 41-month sentence, BuzzFeed reports.

McDonald, a transgerder woman who was convicted of for fatally stabbing a man who attacked her during a hate crime in Minneapolis on the night of June 5, 2011, will be supervised by the Minnesota Department of Corrections for the remainder of her sentence, according to Michael Friedman, executive director of the Legal Rights Center, which represented McDonald in court last year.

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Last spring, McDonald, who identifies as female, was sentenced to 41 months in prison after she plead guilty to 2nd degree manslaughter for the stabbing death of Dean Schmitz.

Here is more background on the story:

McDonald and a group of friends were walking near a grocery story late on the night of June 5, 2011, when they were allegedly accosted by a group of people shouting racist and transphobic comments at them. According to McDonald’s testimony, a fight broke out in which a bottle was smashed on her face and, ultimately, she stabbed Schmitz with scissors in what she said was an act of self-defense.

She was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and in May 2012, accepted a plea bargain with reduced charges of second-degree manslaughter. Throughout the case, supporters around the world rallied behind McDonald, calling her incarceration unjust and her placement in a men’s facility discriminatory.

McDonald plans to issue a public statement concerning her release, and has asked her supporters to allow her to spend her first days “in privacy with people she feels close to,” according to her blog.